...Canada: Why Bernie Ebbers is Serving a 25-Year Jail Sentence BYLINE: By Garfield Emerson LENGTH: 6613 words 1. Background On September 26, 2006, Bernard J. Ebbers ("Ebbers"), the former Chief Executive Officer of WorldCom, Inc. ("WorldCom"), reported to a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, to begin serving his 25-year jail sentence from his conviction by a jury on nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and related crimes related to the bankruptcy of WorldCom in July 2002. Ebbers' appeals from his conviction and 25-year jail sentence were dismissed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on July 28, 2006.1 In its decision upholding the jury conviction and the 25-year jail sentence imposed by the trial judge, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit commented that Ebbers' actions that were specifically intended to create a false picture of profitability for WorldCom were "motivated by his personal financial circumstances".2 Ebbers personal finances imposed significant pressures on him to ensure that the WorldCom stock price did not fall and that WorldCom's guidance of its future financial performance and investors' expectations were met. Ebbers was a wealthy man with a significant personal business empire outside WorldCom. He had also accumulated millions of shares of WorldCom stock. However, he had borrowed over $400US million from banks, using his stock in WorldCom as collateral. As WorldCom stock price began to drop in 2000, Ebbers received margin...
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...| Bernie Ebbers - WorldCom | Ethical Profile | Khristin B. Vargas | uNIVERSITY OF lA vERNE 1/22/2015 | | | Table of Contents Introduction 3 Timeline leading to Ebbers conviction: 3 Current Events 4 Perceived Motivations 5 Impacts 6 Conclusion 6 Bibliography 7 Introduction “The recent corporate accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other corporations have helped to fuel a massive loss of confidence in the integrity of American business, Bernie Ebbers was one of the many owners that crashed our integrity” (Carson, 2003, p. 390). Bernie Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom, business executive, and convict, is known to be one of United States most unethical leaders in history. He was convicted on March 15, 2005 on nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and making false regulatory filings. WorldCom was 2nd in the nation’s largest long distance telecommunications company, however the company was red flagged when a series of rapid acquisitions took place. The company was founded in 1995 and by 2000 it had seen rapid growth improvements as did Ebbers career. Ebbers went from the big “C” in CEO to the little “C” in convict within a short time frame. Timeline leading to Ebbers conviction: * 1980s - Ebbers got involved in the investment, acquisition, and management of telecommunications companies (Ebbers, 2015) * 1995 - Bernie co-founded WorldCom and was given the title of chief executive (Ebbers, 2015) * Late 1990s – Ebbers acquired...
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...) 2002 saw an unprecedented number of corporate scandals: Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing. In many ways, WorldCom is just another case of failed corporate governance, accounting abuses, and outright greed. But none of these other companies had senior executives as colorful and likable as Bernie Ebbers. A Canadian by birth, the 6 foot, 3 inch former basketball coach and Sunday School teacher emerged from the collapse of WorldCom not only broke but with a personal net worth as a negative nine-digit number.2 No palace in a gated community, no stable of racehorses or multi-million dollar yacht to show for the telecommunications giant he created; only debts and red ink--results some consider inevitable given his unflagging enthusiasm and entrepreneurial flair. There is no question that he did some pretty bad stuff, but he really wasn't like the corporate villains of his day: Andy Fastow of Enron, Dennis Koslowski of Tyco, or Gary Winnick of Global Crossing.3 Personally, Bernie is a hard guy not to like. In 1998 when Bernie was in the midst of acquiring the telecommunications firm MCI, Reverend Jesse Jackson, speaking at an all-black college near WorldCom's Mississippi headquarters, asked how Ebbers could afford $35 billion for MCI but hadn't donated funds to local black students. Businessman LeRoy Walker Jr., was in the audience at Jackson's speech, and afterwards...
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...any entity is unethical and disgraceful. Bernie Ebbers, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WorldCom, did what the average business person would not do, commit fraud. WorldCom was one of the leading giants in the telecommunication arena acquiring MCI Communications en-route to global success, but failing at the proposed merger of Sprint. What lead to the lies and deception of WorldCom downfall? This paper will briefly discuss some of the possibilities and the outcome of WorldCom’s fall as well as that of its CEO, Bernard (Bernie) John Ebbers. Contributions of Leadership Bernie Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom, impressed the business world with the fast growth and acquisition of small and larger companies. WorldCom, in the late ‘90s, was the nation’s second largest long distance company led by a man with a vision and drive for success. Bernie Ebbers showed skills of charismatic, effective interpersonal communication, and strong strategic judgment skills. The negative side of this effective leader is Ebbers ability and strength to rationalize decisions effectively opening the door of a sense of invulnerability. Whether the coup orchestrated or team players showing loyalty, Ebbers had the power of making the final decision of misleading investors and employees of WorldCom. Management Bernie Ebbers management skills overcame significant challenges that would stifle normal managers. Ebbers...
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...organization failed the way they did. WorldCom began as a small long distance telecommunication company and progressed into one of the largest telecommunications in the world and the second largest long distance company. It began as a small company in Jackson, MS by Bernie Ebbers and grew to become a darling of the new economy and of Wall Street. Failure within a large organization WorldCom was the number two long distance provider, in July of 2002 WorldCom file bankruptcy. This was the largest bankruptcy ever in U.S. history with a $41 billion dollar debt load, and more than $107 billion dollars in assets and equipment (Ramero and Atlas, 2002). Bernard John “Bernie” Ebbers the former CEO of WorldCom grew the company into one of the largest communications providers in the world. In light of his resignation from WorldCom in 2002 a Securities and Exchange Commission investigator found out that Ebbers and WorldCom admitted that he had inflated $3.8 billion and it also uncovered some $11 billion in fraudulent accounting practices that had fueled WorldCom’s rise. Ebbers entered the telecommunication industry providing long distance services in 1983 with a Jackson, Mississippi company formally known as LDDS. Ebbers grew the organization with a series of business acquisitions and later changed the name of the company from LDDS to WorldCom in 1995 (Ramero and Atlas, 2002). In 1998 he purchased the telecommunications company to MCI for $37 billion dollars and at that time was the...
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...influence hat legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility that they have had on management planning. I will also be analyzing three factors that have influenced the company’s strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning. So please read on to find out about these things within the organization WorldCom. I would like to tell you about the company WorldCom before I get into the planning function of management. In 1983 a man named Bernie Ebbers was an early investor in a company that was a long distance service for a telecommunications company. Bernie made LDDC profitable and it began to grow over a fifteen year span he made the company a total seventy five thousand dollars. (WorldCom, 2010) By 1994 the long distance service revenues reached $2.2 billion and the company’s name was then changed in 1995 to WorldCom to reflect its growing global business. Then in 1998 WorldCom completed a takeover of MCI so it became MCI WorldCom. The company was doing so good but then hit rock bottom for Bernie Ebbers when he had to resign in 2001 due to loan scandal. (WorldCom, 2010) Now that I explained a little about the company I would like to get into evaluating the planning function of management. When evaluating the planning function of management it definitely did not look good for WorldCom. I think that with today’s decisions they impact the state of the future, this is determined by planning. In management planning it involves setting objectives and determining...
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...WorldCom took the telecom industry by storm when it began a frenzy of acquisitions in the 1990s. The low margins that the industry was accustomed to weren't enough for Bernie Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom. From 1995 until 2000, WorldCom purchased over sixty other telecom firms. In 1997 it bought MCI for $37 billion. WorldCom moved into Internet and data communications, handling 50 percent of all United States Internet traffic and 50 percent of all e-mails worldwide. By 2001, WorldCom owned one-third of all data cables in the United States. In addition, they were the second-largest long distance carrier in 1998 and 2002. How the Fraud Happened So what happened? In 1999, revenue growth slowed and the stock price began falling. WorldCom's expenses as a percentage of its total revenue increased because the growth rate of its earnings dropped. This also meant WorldCom's earnings might not meet Wall Street analysts' expectations. In an effort to increase revenue, WorldCom reduced the amount of money it held in reserve (to cover liabilities for the companies it had acquired) by $2.8 billion and moved this money into the revenue line of its financial statements. That wasn't enough to boost the earnings that Ebbers wanted. In 2000, WorldCom began classifying operating expenses as long-term capital investments. Hiding these expenses in this way gave them another $3.85 billion. These newly classified assets were expenses that WorldCom paid to lease phone network lines from other companies...
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...) 2002 saw an unprecedented number of corporate scandals: Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing. In many ways, WorldCom is just another case of failed corporate governance, accounting abuses, and outright greed. But none of these other companies had senior executives as colorful and likable as Bernie Ebbers. A Canadian by birth, the 6 foot, 3 inch former basketball coach and Sunday School teacher emerged from the collapse of WorldCom not only broke but with a personal net worth as a negative nine-digit number.2 No palace in a gated community, no stable of racehorses or multi-million dollar yacht to show for the telecommunications giant he created; only debts and red ink--results some consider inevitable given his unflagging enthusiasm and entrepreneurial flair. There is no question that he did some pretty bad stuff, but he really wasn't like the corporate villains of his day: Andy Fastow of Enron, Dennis Koslowski of Tyco, or Gary Winnick of Global Crossing.3 Personally, Bernie is a hard guy not to like. In 1998 when Bernie was in the midst of acquiring the telecommunications firm MCI, Reverend Jesse Jackson, speaking at an all-black college near WorldCom's Mississippi headquarters, asked how Ebbers could afford $35 billion for MCI but hadn't donated funds to local black students. Businessman LeRoy Walker Jr., was in the audience at Jackson's speech, and afterwards...
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...2002 filed the largest bankruptcy ever in U.S. history with its $41 billion dollar debt load, and more than $107 billion dollars in assets. In 1999 WorldCom’s profits began to decrease when WorldCom reduced budgets on telecom services and equipment. The former CEO of WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers, submitted his resignation from his position. Being CEO, he was the leader of WorldCom, and as such, should help an employee feel supported and safe enough to discuss openly or acknowledge the problem he or she is responsible for. When he resigned from the company, it raised questions because Ebbers had about $366 million dollars in personal loans from the company. Upon the revealing of his resignation to the employees, they were alarmed that something important was happening within the company, but had not yet been exposed. Bernie Ebbers started out in the telecommunications industry in 1983 providing long distance services in Jackson, Mississippi at a company formally known as LDDS. Over the years, the company grew through a series of business deals. In 1995, the name of the company was changed from LDDS to WorldCom. At the time, MCI was the second long distance provider and AT&T was number one. Ebber purchased MCI in 1998, for the amount of $37 billion dollars. With the Examining Business Failure 3 purchase of the MCI, WorldCom became the telecommunications giant. This changed seemed to be the success story of the 1990s, because of how well the company was doing financially...
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...started their business under the name ‘Long Distance Discount Services’ (LDDS) providing long distance telecommunication amenities. In 1985, Bernie Embers became the company’s CEO, in 1995; the company changed its name to WorldCom. Throughout the 1990’s, WorldCom increases its growth through series of successful acquisitions and mergers. Nevertheless in the late 1999, WorldCom’s performance begins to decrease in due to the upward of overcapacity, competition, and reduced demand for telecommunication services at the start of the economic recession and the result of the dot-com bubble downfall. All these burdens triggered WorldCom to become involved in accounting fraud and cook the books. WorldCom’s CFO Scoot Sullivan began the process of mismanaging as capital expenditure with what should have been normal expenses, therefore turning losses in profit, creating a camouflage that the company is carrying out well. Until June of 2002, things started to unravel and the company’s stock price plunged. Investigations were carried out and on June 25, WorldCom admits that it had inflated its earnings by $3.8 billion. After several investigations, total amount revealed from improper events raised to $9 billion causing WorldCom to file bankruptcy in July. Numerous top management employees were held responsibilities for the fraud like Ebbers, Sullivan, and Myers to name a few. This is a case where just like the previous case before, bad ethical decisions were made and it cost...
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...the second largest company doing this, outmatched only by AT&T. Early on WorldCom was portrayed as very promising company that made its way to the top by merging and purchasing smaller companies in order to spread their control throughout the country and more. The management team of WorldCom, led by their chief executive officer (CEO) Bernie Ebbers was so undeniably powerful and strategic that at one point almost performed the largest merger in history with Sprint but the proposal was thought to be something of a “monopoly” and thus never had the opportunity. Towards the end of their promising run WorldCom was estimated to be worth upwards of $20 billion. Although the company was thought to be something of a “titan” among telecommunication companies it was later brought to the attention of the world that many of its management members as well as Mr. Ebbers were involved in fraud. Mr. Ebbers who was thought to be something of a genius for making WorldCom a “powerhouse”, his direct involvement in the downfall of the company discredited him as a successful leader and in turn branded him as an unethical failure as a leader. Bernie Ebbers allowed his company to face the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history and for this was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2005 (Kidwell, Martin). The company’s sense of...
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...organization failed the way they did. WorldCom began as a small long distance telecommunication company and progressed into one of the largest telecommunications in the world and the second largest long distance company. It began as a small company in Jackson, MS by Bernie Ebbers and grew to become a darling of the new economy and of Wall Street. Failure within a large organization WorldCom was the number two long distance provider, in July of 2002 WorldCom file bankruptcy. This was the largest bankruptcy ever in U.S. history with a $41 billion dollar debt load, and more than $107 billion dollars in assets and equipment (Ramero and Atlas, 2002). Bernard John “Bernie” Ebbers the former CEO of WorldCom grew the company into one of the largest communications providers in the world. In light of his resignation from WorldCom in 2002 a Securities and Exchange Commission investigator found out that Ebbers and WorldCom admitted that he had inflated $3.8 billion and it also uncovered some $11 billion in fraudulent accounting practices that had fueled WorldCom’s rise. Ebbers entered the telecommunication industry providing long distance services in 1983 with a Jackson, Mississippi company formally known as LDDS. Ebbers grew the organization with a series of business acquisitions and later changed the name of the company from LDDS to WorldCom in 1995 (Ramero and Atlas, 2002). In 1998 he purchased the telecommunications company to MCI for $37...
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...Tarrell King University of Phoenix Week 1 Assignment August 18, 2009 Between 1991 and 1997, Bernie Ebbers, the CEO of WorldCom, spent $60 billion by successfully completing 65 acquisitions. The two most prominent acquisitions were the MFS Communications acquisition that enabled WorldCom to obtain UUNET. UUNET was a major supplier of Internet services to business. The second major acquisition was MCI Communications because they became WorldCom’s largest provider of business and consumer telephone service. From 1983 to 2002 WorldCom developed from a humble long distance telephone company to the second-largest long distance telephone company in the United States and one of the largest companies handling worldwide Internet data traffic, and finished as the largest bankruptcy of an organization in American history (Moberg, 2008). The purpose of WorldCom was to provide mission-critical communication services for tens of thousands of businesses internationally. WorldCom owned and operated 75 data centers on five continents. The organization owned and operated a global Internet Protocol backbone that provided connectivity in more than 2,600 cities and in more than 100 countries. Before the bankruptcy of the organization, WorldCom carried more international voice traffic than any other company and carried a significant amount of the world’s Internet traffic. Bernie Ebbers and the managers of his company were supposed oversee the activities of WorldCom and ensure that their...
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...that we will address in this paper are: 1. Is current business and regulatory environment more conducive to ethical behavior? 2. What impact was done to WorldCom because of the accounting ethical breach? 3. How was WorldCom caught and how they failed to be ethical? 4. What accounts were impacted and the resulting impact on operations? 5. What measures could have been taken to prevent this breach? The first thing that we will do is to describe how WorldCom came to be one the biggest companies in the telecommunications industry. WorldCom began in 1983 in Clinton, Mississippi as a long distance company called Long Distance Discount Services. As a result of several mergers that began in 1985 after the board elected Bernie Ebbers as the company CEO, the company grew by leaps and bounds. On November 4, 1997, WorldCom and MCI Communications announced their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom, making it the largest corporate merger of U.S. history. On October 5, 1999, Sprint Corporation and MCI WorldCom announced a $129 billion merger agreement between the two companies. This deal did not finalize because of opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Union because of concerns of it creating a monopoly. According to the Library of Economics and Liberty, a monopoly is defined as an...
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...Triangle and Fraud Scale to critically analyse the actions of Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan during the WorldCom saga/ What does your analysis suggest? Dennis Greer’s fraud triangle is a key framework in analysing the ‘factors that cause someone to commit occupational fraud’ (ACFE-The Fraud Triangle, Association of Certified Fraud, Examiners Available from:http://www.acfe.com/fraud-triangle.aspx [January 2014]). The three elements that make up the model are perceived pressure, perceived opportunity and rationalisation. In reference to the events of WorldCom, which has been labelled to date, ‘one of the biggest accounting scandals in history’ (CNN Money- WorldCom’s Financial Bomb, Available from:http://money.cnn.com/2002/06/25/news/worldcom/. [June 2002]) the initial pressures that were the driving force behind the actions of CEO, Bernie Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan are quite vast. Firstly Ebbers, was faced with the managerial strain of financial pressure on management due to the decline in the economic environment and the high expectations of Wall Street. As a result, he was aware that the key to growth was in acquisition and mergers, which required an illusion of a solid investment portfolio and therefore ‘a heavy dependence on the performance of WorldCom shares’ (Forbes- Bernie Ebbers Guilty, Available from: http:// www.forbes.com/2005/03/15/cx_da_0315ebbersguilty). In addition, Ebbers was fuelled by greed, ‘nearly a billionaire’ who indulged ‘in...
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